


Fashion is the armor to survive

by msvulpes



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Other, POV Outsider, andrea is a bit of a badass, i mean you work with Miranda, she scares people now, you're ready to go to war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27804985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msvulpes/pseuds/msvulpes
Summary: ... the reality of everyday life."Andy thinks out of the box constantly. That photography is blurred? There's a photoshop-crazy friend that's owning me a favor anyway. Editor ―  cough Garen cough  ― made a huge mistake and realized it after it was already sent to printing? Well, get me a taxi, the print shop is not that far. Is your dress drenched in coffee right before an important presentation because of an accident? Throw that in the washer, put this black dress instead, no it's not inappropriate, wear this crop coat on top, you look great, go.Once Garen got the dates wrong once and sent for Andy to finish five new articles in one day when she has the whole week? Well, she finished those and figured a layout for the new cover before lunch."
Relationships: Andrea Sanchs & Original Character, Emily Charlton & Andrea Sachs, Miranda Priestly & Andrea Sachs, Nigel Kipling & Andrea Sanchs
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	Fashion is the armor to survive

May her brother never know, but Jasmine has been and still is, a sucker for fashion. She's great at the whole boyish-business-causal-professional-butch-lesbian-but-make-it-chick style. It suits her, Jasmine thinks. Every day's a little trip to her wardrobe, heels or boots, coat or jacket, suit or that cute corset-like shirt? It's fun and she revels as being the most stylish out of her office. She's sometimes wondering if she's trying too hard but most of the time it's her everyday pleasure so fuck everyone else. 

She bought a copy of that one thigh-length sweater Dolce & Gabanna Fall 2020 Collection and combined it with striped black and white pants and combat boots and Jasmine feels like going to war and winning.

If the whole outfit is coincidently worn on the same day their new coworker arrives, well that's just lucky. Their boss, a middle-aged man called Garen, enjoys making a show every time someone new shows up. The last one was the stuttering mess of an intern working for his extra credit and, Jasmine looks around, working behind the biggest plant of the whole room and effectively hiding him when he's there of course, especially considering the poor boy is constantly moving everywhere. 

Jasmine looks around. Most of her coworkers are bored. Everyone works individually but meets up twice a week to discuss the next projects. Today is the second meeting and everyone's waiting to finish organizing before the presentation. 

Garen comes and Jasmine sighs in relief, there's still a paragraph and a conclusion waiting for her at her desk and while she wants to meet the new coworker, there are more urgent matters―

The girl is pretty cute, Jasmine concludes in her lazy lizard brain, with a black dress with a sweatheart neckline and a brown jacket and cute bangs. Garen introduces her. She's Andrea, _Andy_ , she's going to work as a writer in the next issue and editor-assistant, her desk's in the right, close to the window, she had references from Miranda Priestly ( _?!_ ) and to everyone please welcome her. Everyone swarms her and introduces themselves and makes her laugh and tells about how Garen is like, how working here is pretty much chaos, good chaos, and they hope she likes there.

Jasmine smiles. She watches as Andrea stutter and blushes and smiles awkwardly but a glint of interest catches her eyes at the mention of chaos. She gets stared and rearranges her desk and talks to Garen about the basics. She seems more confident as the day goes on, even if she glances outside and looks at Garen making a face. Not disgust, just more as if she's analyzing him.

Jasmine strengthens her back when Andrea's eyes land on her and she ignores that girl for the rest of the day.

* * *

Here's the catch: Andrea is Garen's assistant. The position was supposed to be Jasmine's but she made the excuse of bigger time-management not working with her schedule and Tonny, another candidate, backed down, too. Susan, another one, was a tad too leveled down for the position and Garen didn't want to flourish anything with anyone, meaning he didn't feel like making people come to their true potential. He said he didn't want to babysit anyone, which was code for work a lot, don't ask questions, fix the problems that come like they come with no complaints.

Jasmine likes where she sits. The pay is nice and the coworkers are good and there's just the right amount of stress to keep going but never to overwhelm her completely. She has no interest in doubling her work hours and dealing with Garen's shit as the icing on the top. 

She feels a bit sorry for the Andrea girl. 

They haven't talked much. Mentions of her life here and there. Andrea just dumped her asshole of an ex-boyfriend and had cut ties to most of her group friends after they were dickheads about her last work.

"How was it, by the way, working with Miranda Priestly?"

_My greatest idol, the woman I wish to be with were I not an idiot with future-concrete plans in sports journalism at college, the woman that helped me back up self-esteem, the voice and face of Runaway. The Miranda fucking Priestly._

"Chaotic? And hard, oh, it was so hard. I traveled every part of New York for her and had to create things from thin air, sometimes I catch myself almost answering the phone like I'm waiting for the next impossible order."

"So, a bad experience?"

Andrea looks mildly offended. 

"Not a bad experience. Just a hard one. It's not for everyone working for her." She looks down at her clothes. "But not a bad experience."

* * *

Jasmine is a person of habit. She gets up early, figures out her outfi,t spends half an hour in makeup, buys coffee from that cheap shop down the street, and goes to the metro. She arrives almost always on time and Garen doesn't care for tardies as long as everyone is in the office by 9h30. 

But Andrea is on a completely different level. She stated once that she gets ready while multitasking everything. News while in the bath and brushing teeth, eating while checking social media, talking to her friends ― _Nigel Kipling, oh my god! ―_ while picking clothes for the day, revising the day's schedule in the metro. She finishes less than an hour after and goes to work always a bit earlier. Garen seems to like that about her. 

By the way, her clothes are much more expensive than everyone else in the whole company ― _from a friend,_ she explains to Jasmine after she compliments her hat, _he made me his fashion project for a while_ ― and her makeup is always simple but striking. Her heels click on the floor and eyes are draw to Andrea but she's always emerged in work to notice. She wears Dolce & Gabanna like it's normal.

Jasmine wil addmit there's the green of envy appearing sometimes but Andy compliments many of Jasmine's outfits and helps her at work, fashion or dealing with her brother. Andy, not Andrea, is growing on Jasmine.

* * *

"You should've sent that hours ago! Your time with Miranda didn't teach you the most basic?!"

The boss yelled at her and Andrea didn't even flinch. 

"I'm sorry," she repeated as if the outburst hadn't even happened. "That the package has been delayed. I sent it within the 48h-limit. The moment it has left my hands, it stopped being my responsibility. I have no problem calling the company to speed the process and I'll be happier to do it once my more immediate works are done which would be in less than half-an-hour, I think." Andrea looked up at the boss and while her poker face didn't leave, her voice was bordering on something close to annoyance. "And please, don't raise your voice, improve your argument. I'll see the problem at hand in a second."

Andy smiled, amused, and sat again. Her eyes focused on her computer and Garen was left speechless. He retreated to his office seconds later. Jasmine thought the image reminded her of a puppy with its tail between the legs.

"Hey, Andy." She called. "How did, like, confront him like that? That was pretty badass." _And a bit stupid, but Andrea probably knew that._

Andy turned her attention to Jasmine then looked at her blue cerulean sweater tucked inside her pencil black skirt. 

"There's so much better ways to reprimand someone without yelling at their face." She shrugged. "Cerulean, you know." 

Jasmine repeated. "Cerulean?"

"Cerulean."

* * *

"Andy thinks out of the box constantly. That photography is blurred? There's a photoshop-crazy friend that's owning me a favor anyway. Editor ― _cough Garen cough_ ― made a huge mistake and realized it after it was already sent to printing? Well, get me a taxi, the print shop is not that far. Is your dress drenched in coffee right before an important presentation because of an accident? Throw that in the washer, put this black dress instead, no it's not inappropriate, wear this crop coat on top, you look great, go.

Once Garen got the dates wrong once and sent for Andy to finish five new articles in one day when she has the whole week? Well, she finished those and figured a layout for the new cover before lunch."

"Jesus, is she ok?"

Jasmine glanced at Andy. Towering her desk, phone in-ear, laughing at something while scanning a document and sending to Garen, then she turned to the intern, gave him ten bucks, send him away, talking on the phone, looked at the board, and moved two post-its. She ( _finally)_ stopped and waved at Jasmine. 

"She's, hmm, just fine, this is her element, really."

Jasmine could only say she was confident in the last part. 

* * *

Andy was too good at memorizing things. Jasmine and Garen would be speechless sometimes.

"I need you to go to Klan's Duty with our photographer today, he's going to take care of the central photo in that _Past Wonders and Tasteful Deserts,_ then you're in Marketing to supervise the last printing, Mayfair's the chosen filter but Jonh is disagreeing with me but he's going to print Mayfair, then it's sending these copies to Central, Magaret's going to make her critics so get to her right before the end of your shift, while you wait don't forget to finish that _Central Park or Falling Nature Park? Central of Our Worries Today issue."_

Andrea is nodding slowly as if absorbing everything.

"Wait, I can repeat it to you, you should probably get something to write―"

"No, don't worry, I got it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"I dumped a load of information."

"I got it," she repeated. "Don't worry. And you still need to edit today's issues. Honey sent her earlier so maybe look at hers already to lighten the next workload."

"Ok."

"Great. I'm off to catch the photographer but I'm putting the copies to Margaret already, Jammy is coming with me, too."

"Jammy?"

"James, but Jammy."

Garen shook his head.

"The intern."

"Ah, wasn't he Jarred?"

"Not really, no." She laughed at nothing. "Anyways, I'm off now, bye."

* * *

At the end of both their shifts, Jasmine walked up to Garen's desk and gave him one of the newest layouts to discuss briefly before tomorrow's reunion.

"I still think the left square is so far to the corner it looks like it's falling off the page," he said.

Jasmine groaned. "Derek's claiming it has artistic value like books are becoming forgotten and so it's the image. Disappearing right in front of the reader's eyes."

"That's..."

"Stupid, yes."

"This is not an art exposition."

"Oh, I agree."

"We're making an issue on literature, not declaring a painting―"

There's a knock. Andy appears looking slightly tired in her expressions. Though, when Jasmine compared them both in her mind, Andy is looking great while she has her hair up in a bun poorly made and her make-up hasn't been reapplied since 5p.m. and she's not planning on walking back home in heels but in the sandals she's wearing right now.

"Hi, hmm, your wife called, she says to call her back and, oh, here are Margaret's notes."

"Thanks, Andry."

Andy seems to both enjoy and marvel at praises.

"I'll be gone now. See you all tomorrow." She smiles and moves to her desk to turn off her computer.

"Actually, Andy," Garen says, "Just something else. Derek's being an idiot with his artistic liberties, but you're closer to him, so maybe you could..."

Andy moves to her drawers and answers without looking up. "Tell him Nigel said hi and then propose the change. He'll accept it just fine. Most things after saying Nigel's name will be met with a yes or less fighing involved." Andy shrugs. She picks up a charger and her notebook and puts them in her purse. She's looking more tired now that the shift is gone.

"Oh, ok, thank you, Andy. Good night!"

"Good night!"

After Andy's gone, Jasmine asked dumbfounded. " Did she finish everything?"

"And bought me aspirin when I complained about a headache."

"Jesus fucking Christ."

"Miranda fucking Priestly, you mean."

* * *

The company was working with Runaway for the next two weeks. Fashion aspirations and how clothes make a lifestyle and all that jazz.

Jasmine was pretty excited but when she realized no Miranda Priestly for her, she got a bit defeated. Emily Clarton came in her place, the first assistant, not the second one like everyone has been told because _oh, God, no, the other girl, terrible, just complete bullocks, she's getting fired tomorrow I think, she's a penguin with her white outfits and mess of hair, oh, her hair, no, don't even get me started._

The only one able to work with Emily without urging them to take their eyes out was Andy. They were friends, she explained. Jasmine looked at Emily as she dismissed Andy's opinion in the middle of a phone call and then rolled her eyes when Andy made herself heard. Friends, yes. Emily looked at Jasmine's clothes, up to her face, and turned her back to look at some notes in the desk behind her.

"Oh, that's her liking you."

"So she's a feral cat."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't call her that," Andy answered. "A scaredy-cat, more than anything."

Jasmine thought Emily was beginning to hate her after the sudden laughter that took over her whenever she talked to her. Jasmine didn't leave hissing out of the possibilities for Emily's next remark. 

But there was a special companionship those two had. When Emily mentioned Miranda and everyone asked for details before Emily gave a suffering sigh to Andy like _they are that stupid, aren't they?._ Andy laughed mid-reunion when Margaret asked for flowers in the cover.

"Flowers? In spring? Wow."

Emily stared at Margaret, completely unamused.

"How unique."

* * *

"I think the base color should be cerulean."

"You're kidding."

Emily gave a long sigh. "Gets the message across well, enough, doesn't it? And this color I know Miranda won't hate."

Margaret staring at the board tilted her head and nodded. "It would put everything up nicely, actually."

"I vote yes for the change. This purple―" Garen pointed to the board.

"Magenta," said Emily.

Garen made a face but he was smart enough to not get in a fight with Emily. "Ok, this _magenta_ doesn't look great."

* * *

Andy laughed when she saw the issue. Jasmine didn't get the joke, but Emily did. She actually smiled, a nice smile even, not with fangs like Jasmine's mind has been telling her.

* * *

At her office in Runaway, Miranda Priestly rolled her eyes at the sight of the second assistant's desk empty and turned to the papers right in front of her. She curled her lips in something resembling a smile at the sight of cerulean.


End file.
